Why don’t we figure out which mods are needed utilities and go from there?

We could do that, certainly there are mods that are mandatory for any modpack. For reference sake, here's a list of mods currency running (a screenshot of the mods folder, can't be bother to type them all out in a fancy list):

And here's a list of mods of my private server:

These screenshots include client side mods.

Maybe we should do a voting system?How about... 30, 40, 50 mods max?Should this include utility mods and core/library mods?Or do we only count mods that provide actual content?Client side mods don't count toward the maximum number of mods?

Like inventory tweaks, optifine, JEI, fast leaf decay, even vein miner. These don’t essentially add elements of gameplay but improve functionality. I don’t know what mods exactly do what but I can figure it out with a lot of research.

So mostly stuff that is common in mod packs because they’re more like utilities. That way when we pick and choose we can skip the essentials since they’d be included anyhow.

Also, should we vote on a theme to narrow down choices a little bit? Like do we want magic, tech, combat and dungeons, building?

I did make a very specific mod pack for 1.7 it’s peaceful except every 5 nights the horde raids. link

Actually I never truly finished it, I was adding custom shop blocks before I stopped. The goal was to use your whole kingdom to produce goods that eventually craft into a single super valuable item called the king’s gold that would allow you to buy and trade things, but to make it, it requires you farm everything that is possibly farmable, forcing you to set up a fully functioning village.

But ya know how it goes. Knowledge is half the battle, and about a quarter is also having good allies, and about ten percent is resources, and about five is physical fitness, the rest is attitude, and if you’re in it for the achievement, an additional ten percent, in which 100% is a job well done, but 110% percent is only 10% progress, yet reading is knowledge, knowledge is power, power leads to corruption, corruption leads to crime, crime doesn’t pay, so it doesn’t pay to read, so I don’t have any money for resources, so I’m down 25% but I’m lazy so I can do a lot with 85% because it’s sometimes good to hire someone who’s lazy because they’ll find the easiest way to get the job done with minimal energy so you know you got the right guy for the job.

Is there a pack that already exists like what you want, like tekkit or FTB or something?

There probably is, but there are so many packs available, I don't even bother looking for one. If you find one that suitable, let me know. Otherwise we continue putting together our own little pack. Keep in mind to keep it reasonably small so more people can try it out without having their computers melt.

If you give me carte blanche I can attempt to revive Long Live the King. It only used a few mods anyway but pretty much changed how Minecraft was played. We can tweak it as needed of course but keep it reasonable. :/

Actually... and don't hate me for it, but I'm having second thoughts. There's barely any interest in this server and I feel like pulling the plug. Not sure what to do. I do want to give this another shot and I would like to give you a fair chance to put together something fun to play but when there are close to zero players active, I feel like I'm wasting money.

The only reason I never properly got involved was the mods; I don't have an issue with a few quality of life improvements but when it starts to become more complex than factorio ( are considerably laggier as a result) I just can't play. I don't know if that reason is similar to others

Rimrook is right, mods can make the game interesting again. It is true that most mods have a bit of a learning curve which might scare you, However, there are tons of wiki's out there where you can look up information. I'm also very well experienced with most (but definitely not all) mods, so you can always ask me if you get stuck. I think this is half the fun, exploring and experimenting with the new gameplay features that these mods provide.

I don't know about Factorio, but I've seen screenshots of that game and I'm sure MC mods don't get that complicated.

The goal here is to put together a reasonable small/medium sized modpack that shouldn't take to much system resources.

We can add and tweak as we go. ProjectE is nerfed by only allowing non-organic things to have and EMC value, so you still have to farm a lot. Ancient Warfare is a very large and depthy mod with progression, has NPCs but with machines, I think a lot of that will be automated. We can add a thing or two that might be needed but let's keep this small like 25 mods or so.

AE2 can be configured not to use channels. I personally prefer RS since it's simpler and uses resources that are more easily mass produced (in the old mod pack at least) but with channels disabled they're very similar. AE2's approach to item storage is more expensive than RS so if you just need a mass storage mod then go for RS.

Does RS offer higher tier storage components above 64k?With the addon mod Extra Cells 2 for AE2 you get even bigger storage components as well as storage cells for liquids en gas. Does RS have fluid and gas storage cells? If not, then I'd still go for AE2 with Extra Cells 2.

Also definitely want to have SolarFlux, that is some cool stuff. Also Flux Networks for wireless power transfer is very handy to have.

Ancient Warfare has a storage system but check it out on YouTube to see if it’s something that would work with the other mods.

I also compiled over 200 skins for NPCs which includes a type of people for most biomes like elves, minions, and even penguins. Ancient Warfare was basically the core of my modpack back in the day, you get a lot with just that.

Well, I thought any required dependencies were obvious, what i meant was, for EnderIO there's an addon called EnderZoo and for Mekanism there's Mekanism Generators. Do you think there's any room left for these?